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NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website
ideonexus writes "The National Rifle Association has launched a website defending the use of lead ammunition against scientists and environmental organizations who argue that lead bullets are poisoning the environment and tainting game meat with a known neurotoxin. The rise and fall of lead levels from gasoline and lead-based paint are strongly correlated to the rise and fall of crime rates in communities around the world."
Lead when finely divided or in a form easily absorbed (like paint chips that get eaten) or in a place that can get heavily leached is a real problem.
Blocks of lead, like the wheel weights used to balance car tires aren't a big problem.
Cost. Generally if you remove lead from bullets you see a price increase of nearly an order of magnitude. If you completely remove lead from ammo then you essentially drive the cost of target shooting up to a point where it can only be afforded by the rich.
Hunting wouldn't be much effected - neither would crime, as neither needs a significant volume of ammo, but target shooting would be a thing of the past. Passing laws with such consequences shouldn't be done just because it "might maybe sorta possibly help something somewhere". It needs to have very specific reasons based on scientific study. Not just of the "lead is bad, mmmkay" variety, but actually showing that the lead usage specifically in ammunition is reason for concern. So far, the data just doesn't show any major problem there.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
As a god damn liberal, I say STFU. I am more worried about your stupidity leading most Americans being ok with banning guns than anything politicians can manage.
The suggestion to shoot people like you just did is what endangers our right to own firearms. Not my support of civil rights or food for the hungry.
Read the research. Lead usage in gasoline is correlated, with a scary amount of accuracy, to crime rates. There's a drop off in crime at a specific point about 20 years after the removal of lead from gasoline, the timing of which is consistently that same 20 years no matter when an area stopped using leaded gasoline. So it's not a strawman argument to say that lead poisoning leads to high crime rates -- it's peer reviewed science.
If you want an actual argument for lead in the form of bullets, then you should be talking about how the research is discussing what is essentially an aerosolized form of lead, rather than a chunk of metal. That's where there's room for debate with regards to bullets -- not in trying to vaguely disprove research you obviously didn't even read.
Hell, the medical community puts mercury into injections, and expect you to inject it directly into your blood steam.
There's no solid evidence of health risks from thiomersal. The ethylmercury it breaks down into is as different from methylmercury in its effects on the body as ethyl alcohol is from methyl alcohol. It doesn't bioaccumulate, leaving the body in about 14-18 days.
But, that does not mean that there is anything necessarily wrong with a large piece of meat coming in contact with lead for a short while.
Lead, on the other hand, bioaccumlates quite well. You don't want to eat much in the way of small game shot with lead. There is no safe level of lead exposure and most of it will get sacked away in your bones to be slowly released over years. (Children and pregnant women get much higher doses in the soft tissues due to the way their bones undergo remodeling.)
Small game animals killed with shot tend to have many small fragments of lead in their tissues. The UK's Food Standards Agency advises against eating meat killed with lead shot. Eating less than half a pound of small game would increase your lead exposure by eightfold above average, and about half a pound of deer shot with led would double it. We're talking a teensy 8 oz steak here.
With the introduction of softer, heavier alloys for non-toxic shot, there is no legitimate reason to be using lead shot other than bull-headed stubbornness or an utter disregard for anything other than your own pleasure. It's you and your family that you're poisoning after all.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Gun ownership isn't as much as a Right vs Left thing, but more towards where people live. Urban vs Rural. Also Urban vs Rural is tied to the Right vs Left thing.
Democrats in more Rural areas tend to have High NRA ratings, Republicans form Urban areas tend to have lower ones.
However most Republicans come from Rural Areas and Democrats come from Urban areas.
If you live in an Urban Area, You need and see government assistance every day. Sewer/Water, Garbage Pickup, Police/Fire that less then a few minutes away... You really don't need a Gun if you live in Urban area, it really would just get you into more trouble then it will help you, if you are in danger you call the police and they can get there fast enough to help.
If you live in an Rural Area. Most of the government assistance goes to farmers, but You need to have your own wells, you need to buy from a private garbage company or drop your stuff off at the dump, Volunteer Fire, that could add 30 minutes to respond. Police that is disperse and could take a while to respond too. Having a gun, is more of a useful tool, and chances are you are not getting into trouble with it.
I live in a Rural Area and I do not own a gun. However many of my neighbors do, and it really doesn't bother me, I am fully comfortable going up to them with a riffle in their hands and talking to them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.